


Another Slash Fic

by Hearsesay



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Pennywise (IT), Alvin Marsh is His Own Warning, Comedy, Dark Comedy, Dismemberment, I really do want to stress that this is far less scary than it sounds., M/M, Murder, Richie Tozier is a murderer, Senior year, Sonia Kaspbrak's A+ Parenting, This is less about murder and more about teen love and independence, accidental murder, of multiple varieties, there will be specific triggers listed before each chapter where it's warranted
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:28:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27631411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hearsesay/pseuds/Hearsesay
Summary: Richie Tozier probably killed a guy last weekend. Eddie Kaspbrak isn't about to let that get in the way of his senior year.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 6
Kudos: 17





	Another Slash Fic

Eddie Kaspbrak felt like the world’s smartest idiot.

As far as school went he did alright for himself. Almost straight As unless it came to bullshit like writing or math. One hundred service hours and counting- all logged in with Derry High’s very own Key Club. When Bev needed help with her government homework Eddie usually had a pretty good stab at it. Sure, there were definitely other kids who did better with half the effort, but still, not too shabby. Average. He was ahead but he wasn’t leading the pack by a long shot. If you pressed Eddie for long enough he’d probably admit that he didn’t really want to. Average felt pretty fantastic.

Henry Bowers body was found dead and stinking in the barrens last weekend. Richie Tozier had a smush of blood across the bottom of his Keds.

It’s not like it was fresh or anything. The streak was brown and crusting onto the floor with every idle kick of his leg. Little sprinkles of Hepatitis B only a few feet away from his own skin. Yeah, no fucking thanks. Still, dried or not, it clearly used to be from a human. 

Chancing a glance around the classroom, Eddie swiveled his head from behind this quarter’s book. (It was Hamlet, but that detail doesn’t really seem that important in comparison to the potential murderer chewing Hubba Bubba next to him.) 

Nope. Nothing. Everyone was busy either working through today’s section or pretending to work through today’s section. It was quiet. Kind of.

“Hey uh, Eduardo,” Richie’s voice was dumb around what had to be the world’s largest wad of gum. “Are you caught up yet?”

That wasn’t his name. “That’s not my name.”

“Yeah okay but really, are you?”

“Maybe I could be if you weren’t chewing like everyone needs to hear it.” 

That was probably a pretty dumb move. Sure, Richie might not be the guy who killed Bowers. That blood could be from something totally innocent. Like… well, Eddie couldn’t think of something, which was sort of the point! You don’t just walk around in bloody sneakers for the fun of it. And doesn’t that suck- mouthing off a murderer. It was like begging to get his throat slit! Sure, Richie didn’t seem like the type, but Eddie didn’t know the guy that well anyways. For all Eddie knew Richie spent his weekends mopping up baby blood with those bargain bin button downs. Or not. Eddie wasn’t what you’d call a seasoned tough guy but he figured leaving blood on your sneakers was a rookie move. 

“Yowza! Eds gets off a good one!” He crowed, laughing way harder than the comment deserved and ignoring Eddie’s frantic attempts to shush him. “Hey, sorry about that, really. I’ll pay you back.” Richie’s rubbery lips were split into a shit eating grin, opening up so Eddie could get an eyeful of those Bugs Bunny teeth. Then, slowly, he let the thick wad of purple gum roll out and splat into his open hand. Eddie could only stare down at it with his eyes popped open wide, nostrils flared back. It smelled like artificial grape. 

“What the fuck is wrong with you? What the actual fuck is wrong with you?” Eddie was hissing his words out. Gross! He held back the urge to gag as Richie pressed it underneath his own desk. The wet squish of it was nearly audible while Richie continued to snicker. Yeah. This reminded him of exactly why he didn’t know Richie all too well in the first place. 

“Mr.Kaspbrak, is there something you need to share with the class?”

That clammed Eddie right up, whipping his book up and shaking his head with a No, Miss Kaminsky. Obviously Richie didn’t stop laughing. Now it was just quieter, with the freedom of a teenager who had already worn his teachers down by the start of October. Probably the freedom of knowing that after this May he wouldn’t have to deal with another teacher ever again.

That was an assumption. Eddie was assuming. He just didn’t seem like the kind of guy to go to college. Richie just acted kind of stupid. That and the whole murder thing. Murderers probably don’t get into college. 

Why wasn’t Eddie more freaked out about the murder thing?

Eddie dug his teeth into the meat of his eraser, willing his eyes to stick to the letters in his book. Well… he was kind of busy. There was Key Club once a week at least and Eddie really wanted those extra service hours on his college apps. And geeze, speaking of those, he was working on those just about every night. The information wasn’t all that hard to get down- Eddie knew all that stuff, he was proud of it. The essays though? Those were specifically designed to melt his brain into a thin jelly. But he wrote them! He wrote them and mailed them and then wrote them and mailed them and then he wrote some and mailed some more. Anything to get accepted with enough scholarship to give Eddie an excuse to go. 

See you later, Mom! Eddie would love to visit but plane tickets weren’t covered under scholarships. He’ll make sure to send a post card or ten!

So yeah, Eddie didn’t have a whole lot of energy to spare on this murder thing. Henry Bowers had been the amalgamation of everything shitty about growing up in Derry. He’d poured milk down the front of Eddie’s shorts more than once. Stomped the backs of his knees in more than thrice. Excuse him for not feeling all that torn up over it! And it’s not like he was in danger at all; with the way Richie was showing up to class, Eddie didn’t doubt that the police would have Richie behind bars by Friday.

Huh, Eddie thought as he slowly turned a page. That was going to be a hell of a media circus. Nothing big ever bothered to happen in Derry. It was a huge deal when they made state news. The last time Eddie saw anything about them on TV he was in middle school, gaping at the pumpkin sized potato Mr.Hanlon had managed to grow. He hadn’t been friends with Mike yet at the time. They wouldn’t really get to know each other until they wound up going to the same high school. But that potato? That potato made Eddie want to at least try getting to know him. Big potatoes aside, those were the sort of things Derry got on the news for. Big plants. Not murder.

He could already imagine that dopey face of Richie’s in front of the camera! With his big face he’d fit right in on TV. Eddie held back the urge to chortle. Maybe he was being a little mean. It just felt good to feel a step ahead of everything for once. He knew something no one else did, well for a few more hours, because sooner or later everyone was going to catch up. Richie might have been alright at one point! Maybe they could have been friends a while back and bond in that way that people do when they clearly don’t have a ton of other friends. But Richie probably killed a guy and by the state of his Keds? It had been brutal.

Eddie wasn’t going to go down to the station or anything, though. Miss him with that. If his mom even caught a whiff of him being inside a police station he’d be locked in his room for the rest of the school year. Literally. 

Christ- the second she hears that Eddie went to school with, no, shared a homeroom with a murderer? His slowly gained semi-independence was over.

Eddie stopped chewing.

It would be, right? At the very least she’d call up the school and pull him out of any clubs. But then she’d probably want him to start coming home at four again. The eraser dropped with a bounce against the desk, Eddie’s fingers stilling. 

Had they been this cold before? He tilted his head up towards the AC vents, eyes squinted in preparation. But there was nothing coming out. Of course nothing was coming out, this side of the school hadn’t had air conditioning since August. Eddie let his gaze flop back down to his book, the same page he’d been on for the past five minutes. If she didn’t let him leave the house after school there was no way in hell she’d let him out during the weekends. He didn’t even want to think about the aftermath of asking if Bev or Mike could come over. The chill traveled with a creep into the pit of his stomach. It curled up there, made itself at home, and expanded until it froze up the whole of his gut and shot up into his throat.

Oh. Okay. This was how he was supposed to feel sitting next to a murderer. 

Eddie made quick work of packing up his backpack, hands numb and sloppy as books made their way in. Fuck. Fuck! The second Richie gets caught Eddie’s done for. Everything he’d worked so hard for stomped over by shitty bloody Keds.

If Richie got caught. Right? The thought shot past before Eddie could even settle on it, clearing his stomach with a heavy knock. 

He might not get caught in the first place! There’s always a chance. Eddie’s eyes moved back to the glaring oversight on Richie’s shoe. It blinked back up at him from where the blood had chipped away to reveal the white rubber underneath. This guy was toast.

It was as if someone else had completely taken the controls. The final bell rang and Eddie was out of his seat, backpack already zipped as he took hold of Richie’s wrist. If Richie had any objection to this Eddie was too deafened by the blood in his ears to hear it. Everything roared in an unsteady rush as he yanked them both from the classroom. 

The tiles beneath his feet dipped and slipped away. Like the Earth had shifted on its axis. Falling forward, Eddie watched as everything melted into fluorescent colored oil and dripped into his ears. Hot and bursting. 

Looking back on it, Eddie might consider this to be an important moment. One of those scenes you see in a movie where the main character makes a choice that changes the scope of their life forever. But at the same time it felt like breathing; that no matter what Eddie did that day, he’d always find himself colliding with Richie Tozier in one way or another. 

This time they collided into an empty bathroom stall.

Richie’s back hit the divider with a rattle, Eddie’s hands finding themselves balled against his shirt. Somehow someway Richie got the message to shut up as they stood there and waited. The only sounds left were the distant squeak of sneakers outside and the warm breathing puffed between them. The moisture left Richie’s face slick with a sheen of sweat. Eddie watched as it beaded across the fine dark hairs above his upper lip. Every few minutes his lips would part like he wanted to say something and only shut when Eddie would fix him with the best glare he could muster. Which, as always in Eddie’s opinion, was a pretty fucking strong one considering who he was possibly up against. Eventually the voices in the hallway and sneakers dissolved into silence. Eddie let go of Richie and took a step back.

“So,” Richie somehow beat Eddie to speak even now, his already massive eyes peeking down just under the lense of his glasses. He didn’t sound all that confident though. Every syllable Richie spoke peaked and cracked like a gun was pressed up against his head. “I’m flattered, really. You definitely have the whole preppy thing going on! Any guy would be real lucky to-”

“Shut up!”

“Yessir-"

"No. No! Zip it. I swear to God if you open your mouth before I can say what I need to say you're done. You hear me?" Eddie hissed, hand pressing hard against the cotton of Richie’s shirt. He could feel the shift of Richie’s adam's apple from just above as he swallowed.  
Richie parted his lips with a wet click before seeming to think better of talking. Up this close, Eddie felt like all of his face looked magnified. That was saying a lot when everything about this guy already seemed bigger than it should be; big eyes, big mouth, big teeth, big hair. It was like something pulled him right off the pages of a MAD Magazine.There was no ignoring someone who looked like that.

“I know what you did last weekend.”

For a second Eddie couldn’t help but think that he’d fucked up. Sure Richie was skinny but he had a head on him at least, all it would take was one push in the right direction and Eddie would be out cold. Corn syrup red blood painted itself sticky on the insides of Eddie’s brain. Richie didn’t make a move though- if anything he’d managed to go completely still.

“Look, man,” His voice came out choked. “I don’t know what you saw but you’re fucking crazy.”

“I’m fucking crazy?”

“Yeah, you’re fucking insane. You’re a little lunatic and you have me cornered in a stall with your dick hard because you’ve lost it,” Richie’s voice came chugging along faster and faster. “You’re like five five. You’re like five five and you’re going to beat my face in because you’re insane and think you saw me somewhere I wasn’t.”

The speed of it all left Eddie in a daze. He was used to others trying to keep up. Did he ever sound this weird? “I’m five nine. Dick.”

The silence was trying to encroach upon their space again, kept at bay by their heavy breathing and the gears turning between Eddie’s ears. Richie was pulling his fish act again; mouth opening wide and closing when he decided not to speak. Still tight, Eddie loosened his fingers before letting them root back into Richie’s shirt harder than before. For once Eddie was in a situation with all the power, what happened to this asshole was up to him. Something told him that if he hit Richie he wouldn’t fight back. Not really. He could stick Richie’s head into the toilet bowl and swirlie him until the cops came. He could frog march him into the administrative office and leave it to the adults, spend the rest of his afternoon eating ice cream and basking in the afterglow of accomplishment. Just lay on the tile and let himself become victim number two. Eddie could kiss Richie, maybe, but the thought made his stomach churn and the idea was gone as quickly as it had arrived.

All of this power and all Eddie could do was talk.

“There’s blood on your shoe, dipshit,” Richie blinked thrice. “Yeah. I mean- seriously, are you asking to become a key suspect? Because this is exactly how you become a key suspect. A bleach pen! A towel and soap! Literally anything besides the specific pair of shoes you probably used to cave Bower’s head in! And don’t even try to tell me that it’s your only pair because I know it’s not your only pair because your other pairs are in the brightest colors known to mankind because I guess you just hate being a person who lets people get their shit done in general peace without distraction because I guess you like the attention because-”

All of Eddie’s blood had pooled into his cheeks, face flaming as he tried to make up for lost breath. Richie didn’t look like he was doing all too well either. His face looked so white that it turned green, the extra blood warming Eddie’s knuckles. The familiar feeling of loss filled Eddie’s lungs. An aspirator of camphor water shook invitingly in his left pocket, but was ultimately untouched when he managed to croak out, “Because you killed him. Killed, I mean Bowers, he’s- he’s dead and you did that. You did that to him.”

Richie didn’t even bother trying to open his mouth, lower lip going tight and unsteady. 

“So you can’t get caught.”

“...Exqueeze me?”

The collar of Richie’s shirt smelled like old cigarettes. The smell had been wafting up at Eddie for the past few minutes, acrid and frightened. He knew that Richie smoked, knew that sometimes he’d bum cigarettes off Bev and vis versa. Eddie zoned in on that, shutting his eyes with a squeeze. Exqueeze. Who the fuck said ‘exqueeze me’?

Biting back a laugh, feeling more than a little kicked off the ledge, Eddie watched as the creature he’d created snapped back into the shape of a boy. Part of his world, who knew his friends, who was sharing the stagnant bathroom air between their mouths. “I’m not… if you get caught there’s going to be an aftermath. A messy, annoying, hard aftermath that I don’t want to deal with. So I’m going to help you, alright? I’m going to help you and you’re going to like it because otherwise they’ll get your ass by the end of the week and I’m just making a wild guess here but something tells me that you don’t want to go to jail. I mean, tell me if I’m wrong! Tell me if I’m incredibly off base here and you’d actually like to get-”

A sweaty hand was clapped over Eddie’s mouth. It took him a second to register that it had even been able to happen, Richie’s pits high enough for him to move his arms without much issue. His mouth burst with the flavor of salt and fake grape. Eddie was almost too preoccupied with screaming to bite down. 

Richie let go with a yelp and snatched his hand back, cradling it like Eddie had left a tooth lodged inside. Maybe he had? Eddie couldn’t be assed to run his tongue around the sides of his mouth right now. Instead he was stumbling back and away from Richie as the air left his hands cold. What the fuck? “What the fuck!”

“You weren’t going to shut your trap!” So much for keeping things quiet. Richie didn’t sound all that angry though, thumb hovering over the little pink crescents dotting his palm. If anything he looked, well, Eddie couldn’t actually place it. But he wasn’t moving forwards and he wasn’t moving out. All he seemed able to do was stand there with his catchers mitt hands and stare at Eddie’s shoulder. And then, much more quietly, he asked, “You’re serious though? Don’t fuck with me here. You can’t fuck with me here I don’t know what to-”

“Oh yeah, you’re right I totally forgot, I’m going to get a murderer alone and tell him I know what’s up for laughs.” A sideways hiccup made its way out of Richie, half aborted and twice removed. It was a nice sound, Eddie thought. Not as nice as the laughter that came after, wild and tearful, but a relief no matter what. Everything was okay. They were going to get this taken care of and Eddie’s plan could resume without a hitch.

“Geeze, you’re a riot, Eds!”

“Eddie.”

“Right, right, sure.” Richie was starting to creep out of the stall, steps speeding up once he realized that Eddie wasn’t going to try and stop him from leaving anymore. Now that his adrenaline had plateaued Eddie was more than happy to just follow behind and get away from the toilets. Their steps clicked muffled and squeaky down the bare halls. Richie’s sweat was still a sheer coat against Eddie’s hands and mouth, present and inoffensive in the wake of their understanding. He’d wash it off once he got home; Softsoap and tap water. Until then he’d just look up at Richie and hope that the other guy would make this as easy as it could be.

They stopped once the school was behind them and the sun was on their skin, toes edging the student parking lot. There weren’t a lot of cars left but if Eddie had to guess, and he felt like it, he’d pin Richie on the grey Sierra hatchback posted up against the far end. 

There were details to hash out. Morality to probably question. More than a few questions to ask. It was too bad that Eddie couldn’t get his brain to grasp any of those concepts at the moment, too busy acknowledging the classmate slash murderer as he pulled out his keys. 

“You know what I said earlier? About you being fucking nuts.”

“Yeah?” Eddie asked.

“I meant every single word, you really proved me right here, man. I mean, there’s stupid. And there’s crazy. But then there’s whatever,” Richie waved up and down the length of Eddie’s body. “All of this is about. And hey don’t get me wrong! I’m grateful! It’s not every day you get a cute little sidekick to help you deal with some cold ones but-”

“Wait hold on,” That was probably the tenth time they’d interrupted each other that day. It was actually kind of funny if you thought that sort of thing was funny. Eddie might actually find it pretty funny. He’d be laughing now, except, “Why’s that a plural?”

“Huh?”

“Cold ones. That’s plural. That’s a- that’s more than one cold one.”

Richie didn’t say anything. They looked at one another as birds screamed from high above. Eddie’s tongue burnt with grapes and salt. 

“Richie,” Eddie swallowed. “What exactly did you do?”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! This took way longer than I thought it would to write so it really has become this strange labor of love. This fandom produces such amazing fiction and I really hope that I can add to people's enjoyment of it after lurking for so long.
> 
> Comments are always appreciated!
> 
> Twitter: [I'd love to chat!](https://twitter.com/MonsterSuburban)


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